Joss Whedon picks his top 10 ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ episodes!

Everyone has their own favourite Buffy episodes, but now Joss Whedon has picked his own 10 best – and there’s no arguing with that list!

Well, this blows Selina and Jimmy‘s dueling columns where they listed their own top 5 Buffy episodes out of the water. Forget our lists, Joss Whedon has officially picked the 10 best Buffy episodes. We can hardly argue with that, right?

His list includes most of the classics you’d expect, but it may still surprise you. Check out what episodes Joss Whedon considers his favourites, as listed on EW (with our own descriptions, not Joss’):

“Prophecy Girl” (1×12)
The season 1 finale saw Buffy best the Master. Oh, and she died, too.

“Innocence” (2×14)
This is arguably the episode which turned Buffy from a nice teen show about love and vampires into an omg-Angel-just-turned-evil-wtf master drama series that would be remembered forever.

“Becoming, Part 2” (2×22)
Often described as the best ever episode of Buffy, the season 2 finale concluded (or so we thought) the tragic love story of Buffy and Angel, and ended with a devastated Buffy leaving Sunnydale.

“The Wish” (3×09)
“Bored now.” Aside from vamp Willow, this episode also painted an awesomely believable alternate reality where we saw what Sunnydale would have been like without Buffy.

“Doppelgangland” (3×16)
Vamp Willow returns! We don’t fault Joss for picking both episodes with her, because she was awesome.

“Hush” (4×10)
This almost completely silent episode was nominated for an Emmy – ironically (or maybe not) for the script. It was a masterpiece with terrifying villains and hilarious comedic moments.

“Restless” (4×22)
The season 4 finale is one of the most trippy dream sequence episodes you’ll ever see on TV, and arguably the best. Each of the four main characters’ psyches are explored in sequences that are both bizarrely random and layered with complexity.

“The Body” (5×16)
This episode could not possibly be left off Joss Whedon’s list. Arguably the most powerful episode in the Buffy series, there were no monsters (well, one towards the end but we don’t count him) to fight, only the cold hard reality of Buffy’s mother dying and everyone’s worlds shattering. Where “Hush” had no words, “The Body” had no music, and that made it all feel just that much more real and tragic.

“Once More With Feeling” (6×07)
The musical episode is another Buffy episode that usually makes everyone’s list of favourites. The characters expressed everything they were feeling through song, thus making it not only “an episode with music,” but so much more poignant.

“Conversations with Dead People” (7×07)
An episode which took us out of the mad rush against the First (or so it seems) in the seventh and final season, “Conversations” allowed for Buffy, Dawn and Willow all to reflect on their states of being through different varieties of their pasts coming back to haunt them.

Are these on your list? Share your own favourites in the comments! And just for the record – out of our dueling columns, Selina got three on this list, Jimmy got two. But hey, who’s counting?

And if it makes you desperate to rewatch some of these you’re in luck, because LOGO is holding a 10-hour Buffy marathon airing all of Joss’ faves, on Monday the 19th of May starting at 10 a.m.!

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